VPIM did not ignore mixer. RFC1911 and 24212 refers to mixer as the normative
reference for sensitivity and importance. VPIM profiled how to map these to
existing semantics in the voicemail world, where there is no equivalent to
company confidential. Because there was no hope of advancing mixer, when it
was time to advance VPIM to draft, the VPIM WG was advised to define these two
fields directly. Every effort was to make the definitions consistent.
If Mixer comes back to life, we may have to do some work to make sure the
paperwork matches the intention (and current reality) that these be the same.
Greg V.
-----Original Message-----
From: ned+ietf-822(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com
[mailto:ned+ietf-822(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 1:33 PM
To: Bruce Lilly
Cc: ietf-822; Keith Moore
Subject: Re: Company-Confidential indication
As best I can tell from reviewing the documents, Sensitivity
(and Importance) were defined first by MIXER in RFC 987.
I believe that's correct.
VPIM then grabbed ahold of the same fields in RFC 1911.
When MIXER was revised as RFC 2156, there was a note
cautioning about other (non-MIXER) uses of these fields.
RFC 1911 was then updated to RFC 2421 (and again to
3801), apparently ignoring the MIXER cautionary note.
I would like to think that MIXER is dead for all practical purposes. There
certainly is little if any chance of the specification ever getting updated
again. I therefore cannot see taking this cautionary note very seriously.
However, I should add that only a few months ago I was contacted by someone
writing a brand new implementation. The mind boggles...
Ned